1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of pet and animal grooming, particularly claw trimming.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Animals' claws are constantly growing and domesticated animals typically do not have a lifestyle where their claws are worn down by a natural process. As a result a pet's claws can grow to an uncomfortable and unhealthy length if not kept in check by regular clipping or trimming. The terms clipping and trimming are used extensively herein, and are used interchangeably and always mean to remove a portion of claw by a cutting device.
Conventional animal nail and claw clippers are widely used and typically perform as intended. There are several problems associated with these devices. They do not determine the actual length and location of the quick. The operator does not know exactly how short to trim the claw until it is trimmed too short. In addition, the length of the quick is not always constant from animal to animal. There may also be some variation within an animal from claw to claw. These devices do not account for these variations and cannot make proper adjustments. Attainment of the proper or right amount of claw to be considered excess while preserving the integrity of the internal quick has been “hit or miss” at best. Until now, trimming an animal's claw has always required extreme care to avoid injury to the animal and yet often the animal is injured none-the-less. In fact, because of multiple factors such as unskilled pet owners, poor eyesight and most of all opaque claws it is often impossible to safely clip an animals claw every time. As such, there is substantial room for improvement.
References made to an animal's claw means a claw or nail that contains a quick. By the term quick, it means that structure internal to the animal's claw that has blood flow as known to those skilled in the veterinary arts. The term claw and the term nail are used interchangeably and are understood as defined by veterinary science.
Historically, although widely used, all conventional nail & claw clippers for family pets and domesticated animals share the same major shortcoming. Whether hand actuated, manually operated or motor driven, traditional claw and nail clippers have routinely caused injury to the animal by cutting into the quick of the claw. Cutting of the animals quick results in discomfort, pain, and bleeding. Unfortunately for the pet, the misalignment of the cutters (resulting in the animals quick to be penetrated), occurs often by the actions of both the pet owners (the non-specialist), by para-skilled (Veterinarian technicians) and by the specialist themselves (licensed Veterinarian) because the animals quick can be difficult to locate in a clear-colored claw and virtually impossible to locate visually in an opaque claw. Conventional clippers with a so-called mechanical positioning device or adjustable stop do not solve the problem either. They merely pre-determine or standardize the cutting length chosen and in that regard may be more detrimental to the animal's health if the wrong cutting length is chosen. And therein lies the crux of the problem of all currently available claw clippers—they all rely on the clipper operator visually locating (the eye ball test) the appropriate distance from the quick to clip the excess claw or, worse yet, with a claw that the quick is not readily exposed to guess at the quick's location before for attempting cutting excess claw. Unfortunately, pet owners and professional animal caregivers alike are wrong in this estimate too many times. The secondary fallout from this error in judgement is the development of negative feelings in the animal's for the claw trimming process. Once the negative experience occurs and is associated with the nail clippers the animals resist having their claws clipped at the sight and recognition of the clippers—increasing the difficulty of the clipping process and increasing the likelihood of error and accidents.
The prior art nail gauging devices and positioning structures for nail clippers amount to a fixed or adjustable mechanical stop, plate, structure or arm that allow the operator a given length or allow the operator to fix a uniform length of claws to clip. None of the devices or improvements actually locate the position of the quick in the claw nor do they calculate and determine safe cutting point, i.e. a point that does not violate an animal's quick.